By Andrew Rice
The Center Square

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a new rule to streamline the filing process for temporary agricultural worker visas.

The rule, which is set to begin on Oct. 2, will allow U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to begin processing petitions for H-2A agricultural workers while the Department of Labor reviews employment applications.

“This change allows USCIS to support American farmers in their critical work for our nation while also ensuring that they hire thoroughly screened and vetted foreign labor,” said USCIS Spokesperson Matthew Tragesser.

The H-2A visa program allows agricultural employers to hire immigrant workers for temporary or seasonal jobs when there are not enough U.S. workers available.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture data, 42% of farmworkers in the U.S. do not have legal status.

Beginning Oct. 2, the new rule allows employers to petition for unnamed beneficiaries electronically after the Labor Department issues an acceptance notice for labor certification. Previously, petitioning employers had to wait until a labor certification was fully approved before petitioning for unnamed beneficiaries.

Citizenship and immigration services cannot approve petitions until the Labor Department approves its temporary labor certification, but it can start on the approval process sooner under the new rule.

The labor certification serves as proof that an able, willing and qualified U.S. worker is unable to fill the employer’s petition and that a foreign worker’s employment will not adversely affect wages or working conditions of other U.S. workers.

Jordan Fischetti, an immigration policy fellow at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, said farmers often have to wait long periods of time in the application process for workers on H-2A visas.

“If you’re a small farmer, you need a certain amount of workers to start on a particular date and you need them there for the whole season,” Fischetti said. “In the farming world, profits are razor thin.”

The newly developed form submission is only available electronically through the USCIS website and is only available for unnamed beneficiaries.

USCIS plans to expand its streamlined filing system for paper petitions and named beneficiaries, respectively.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins acknowledged American farmers and ranchers could experience a “time of uncertainty” due to the Trump administration’s economic agenda and global market trends. She promised there would be an announcement “very, very soon” to help American farmers.

“We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of family farms just in the last five to ten years, the cost of doing farming only continues to increase, especially under the last administration,” Rollins said.

“When migrants choose legal pathways to employment in the United States, it is beneficial for American businesses, the public’s confidence in the rule of law, and the foreign workers themselves,” Tragresser said.